Hasmo Legends XXXI: A Life in the Circus

by Tim Messom

In my final year at Millfield, I was cast as Shylock in the school production of The Merchant of Venice. I identified very strongly with this cruelly put upon outsider and the role was highly therapeutic for me. I too had felt ostracised and excluded, partly because of my total lack of ball skills in a sports mad environment. It made me think deeply about the historical treatment of Jews in so many parts of the world, how they were prevented from undertaking most forms of work and how non-Jews were ever anxious to borrow their money before reviling them for daring to make a living in one of the few ways open to them.

Just before starting my Exeter University degree in English and Drama, I took part in a rehearsed reading of a documentary play called The Investigation. It consisted entirely of witness statements from the Nazi concentration camps. More food for thought. So when I responded to a Times Ed advertisement for an English teacher at what was then the Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys, I had high expectations of exceptionally gifted, highly motivated pupils with a love of learning. There were some of those . . .

My interview with Mr Stanton was brief and I was, to my surprise, sent to a private house in Highgate to meet a Rabbi Schonfeld, the very image of an Old Testament prophet with his long white beard and piercing eyes. I had quite fancied my Religious Studies knowledge, but failed to answer his questions concerning the Torah. It didn’t seem to matter – my appointment as third in the English Department to Mr Soester and Mr Marks, with some Junior History in Mr Johnson’s Department, was confirmed. I was delighted to find out about the early winter closing on Fridays and the October holidays, perfect for a jump racing enthusiast like me!

Mr Soester, who became a lifelong friend, started on the same day as me but came with a wealth of teaching experience and knowledge of the ways of Orthodoxy. I quickly became aware of his philosophical detachment and sense of humour, strengths which were to prove invaluable in the face of the consistent air of disapproval which our presence seemed to provoke in some of our colleagues.

That was in September 1973. It was my second year as a full-time teacher. My first had been in what was then the Friern Barnet Grammar School, a one form entry private school for boys run on a wing and a prayer. The headmaster lived in fear of complaints from the parents and, from time to time, would summon me from my lessons to answer why I had clashed with one of my more obnoxious pupils. My exit from the classroom would be accompanied by much cheering, my students delighted I was on the mat once more. I longed for the end of each day, though on one occasion my departure was delayed because mysteriously my car tyres had been let down. My popular name there was ‘Minced Morsels’, my lugubrious manner being somewhat similar to that of Clement Freud, famous for advertising that variety of dog food. It was time for a fresh start.

Although hysteria quickly and unpredictably bubbled to the surface amongst Hasmo boys, there was little of the personal malice I had previously experienced. Indeed many of my new pupils were charming and well able to sustain an adult conversation. But the slightest incident would have the younger boys rushing into a screaming, whooping pack. In class, too, there was the sense of a powder keg of barely restrained hysteria. Gradually I came to understand that this intense energy, which had to be suppressed much of the time, was particularly characteristic of the Yeshiva Stream boys. And no wonder, when they had such a long day, arriving early and staying late to learn, learn, learn the ancient texts. Moreover, physical exercise and competitive sport were not integral to the school’s ethos so there was limited opportunity for letting off steam in a healthy way. When they weren’t testing my patience to boiling point, I felt sorry for them. It was evident that some of my colleagues were only truly interested in the boys bound for Gateshead and the Rabbinate. 

Just as there was an all too clear division amongst the boys, so too in the staff room. Fortunately there were two rooms available and the more intensely religious, who may have wished to avoid overhearing profane discussions, could withdraw to the ‘quiet’ one. Others were more relaxed. Mr Taylor, inveterate chain smoker, was always ready for a chat and often full of foreboding for those of us whom he felt had few prospects of advancement where we were. Mr Lawrence kept up our spirits with his sense of the ridiculous, though in gloomier moods he would look at the tree through the staff room window and be all too aware of the passing of time as the seasons changed. He eventually escaped by joining one of his brightest sixth form pupils in setting up a property management business. Mr Bloomberg was a kind, gentle soul who strove to retain early to mid twentieth century standards and teaching materials – undoubtedly a little trying for his French Department colleagues, Mr Tarrant and Mrs Schneider.

An early endeavour to heighten interest in English Literature and provide some creative relaxation was to attempt a simplified production of Oliver Twist. In Noam Gottesman we had a very promising Oliver and there was some interest as we began to cast other parts and have some rehearsed readings. We were stopped in our tracks very quickly. We hadn’t reckoned on the storm of protests our apparently innocuous idea would arouse. A veritable tide of objections: Should the boys be participating in such a frivolity when they could be studying the Torah? What material would any costumes be made from? Remember no male must impersonate a woman! Was Dickens anti-Semitic? Our initial enthusiasm quickly . . .

Few authors escaped the suspicion of anti-Semitism and, if they did, the issue of what was unsuitable material for the boys would be raised instead. Romeo and Juliet was the subject of a regular tug of war over many years. Like most schools, spending on new books had to be contained within a budget, so when an old set of H. E. Bates’ Fair Stood the Wind for France was dug out from the dusty library shelves it seemed likely this story of heroic endeavour against the Nazis would make an engaging second form reader. After several weeks’ work, and when interest was indeed being ignited, an anonymous complaint caused it to be withdrawn overnight. The only potentially offending words that we could find: ‘He reached up and touched her breast.’

It was strange to reflect that many of my colleagues believed the world to be five and a half thousand years old and that women, who should always keep their hair covered in public, are unclean and should not be touched for a chunk of each month. Yet many of the boys seemed relatively untouched by the extremes of religious dogma.

My first sojourn at the Hasmo lasted a mere five terms (though it seemed longer!) I chanced across an advertisement for a circus ringmaster and it so happened that I had been brought up with an interest in circus through the friends my father, a professional photographer, had made in that world. I made a special study of this branch of the performing arts as part of my degree. So the decision to join Circus Hoffman (billed as ‘the Wildest Show on Earth’) was not quite as extraordinary as it might seem. Moreover, it was a way to gain membership of Equity, the actors union, and in those days the stage still beckoned me. I was interviewed and accepted, probably because of my loud voice and a certain facility, honed after years of boarding school life, for talking my way out of trouble – a skill that would turn out to be essential in my new role! Two good Hasmo memories from this time: Mr Stanton telling me I would always be welcome to return to the school and my GCE class clubbing together to present me with a beautiful leather whip as a farewell present.

Mr Harrison had tipped off the Evening Standard and so supplied the first of many media stories about my change of occupation, usually along the lines of ‘Teacher Tim Runs Away to Join the Circus!’ Over the next couple of years there were television appearances and radio interviews and I appeared in a short film for schools’ television. Amongst the more colourful adventures were flood and fire, the lions escaped on one occasion and the monkeys on another, there was a pitched battle on the Isle of Wight between rival factions on the show, and a disastrous attempt to include a version of The Planet of the Apes that frightened the little children so much that audiences walked out en masse and the show had to pack up and leave Newcastle in a hurry. All very different to life at the Hasmo. And no, contrary to popular invention, my wife did not run off with a lion tamer. I wonder who thought up that one . . .

Five years on and, having changed occupation but discovered I was not cut out to be a commission-only life insurance salesman, it was time to fulfil the prophecy inherent in Mr Stanton’s promise. I had come to the conclusion there was much to be said for a salary, a pension scheme and paid holidays. By this time Rabbi Roberg had taken over as headmaster. As he remarked to Mr Soester about my appointment, ‘Better the devil you know . . .’

Little had changed in my absence: Mr Harrison was no longer there to study the Financial Times each morning and Mr Balin, with his memories of observing the Sidney Street siege, had taken a well earned retirement. But Rabbi Angel, with his beautiful assistant Goldie, who lived nearby and rarely entered the staff room, still ruled the Art Room. I replaced a certain Mr Lent who I was told had gone into business in the North of England as a baker. He was remembered for having incurred Mr Stanton’s wrath by conducting a private reading lesson during an Ofsted inspection, thus leaving the inspectors nothing to inspect! Assemblies still had the same atmosphere of murmuring and restlessness, as if a full scale riot could break out at any time. Indeed, throughout the day there were the same shrieks, shouts and banging of desks and drawers that I had known before. The suspicion of what corruption the English Department might be peddling seemed to have intensified. I was shocked to discover that boys coming to interview for a place at the school would be routinely asked where their parents bought their meat and whether they ever went out in the car on a Saturday.

There was a steady increase in staff meetings: utterly boring and pointless because so little ever seemed to change. They seemed to go on forever and, just as closure seemed imminent, the ever enthusiastic Mr Bokor would introduce a new topic and add a further quarter of an hour to proceedings. I was sure our leaders used to speak as slowly as possible in order to fill up the designated time. I succeeded in removing myself from this once weekly torture by signing up for a Barnet counselling course for teachers which happily coincided with the times of the dreaded meetings.

Counselling skills were little in demand at the Hasmo. On one occasion I confided to Rabbi Roberg that I felt I should get to know the boys in my form better. ‘Better not to get to know them too well, Mr Messom’ was his response. He did have a sense of humour. On another occasion I confided that I was worried about the behaviour of one of his sons, who would sit in my lessons with his fists clamped over his ears, presumably lest my words should in some way corrupt him. ‘Horrid boy, take no notice’ was the headmaster’s response. Funnily enough, it was another of his sons who was observed, to the amazement of a friend who had come to collect me one afternoon, outside the school rolling himself repeatedly from the pavement into the road and back again, gathering much dirt and dust in the process.

One ritual I instituted that lasted for many years was the Thursday Lunch Club: for those of a liberal disposition to take a lunch break at The Mill pub (now a nursing home) just down the road. School lunches left much to be desired, though it must have been a hard task to produce strictly kosher on what was undoubtedly a strictly limited budget. Our once a week excursion was a very welcome break from the shrieks, howls and hammering on the staff room door that did nothing for our digestion. DJ, I believe, particularly despised our Thursday exodus. Not that he said so – he rarely spoke to us – but there was a certain look, a heavy sigh, a look at his watch on our return, that spoke volumes. On one occasion I returned to find that my car had been damaged by some of our pupils ignoring the school rules, as was their custom, and chasing each other around the cars. I wanted to claim from the school’s insurance and when I put this to Rabbi Roberg, DJ intervened to say that, surely, as it was a Thursday, I would have driven to the pub. Oh the joy of being able to reply that I had travelled with Mr Johnson!

I was also required to help poor Mr Chishios in the Games Department (he was more up against it than we were in our attempts to convey the glories of English Literature). You would hardly think of my fellow sufferers, Mr Marks and Mr Soester, either, as muddy field enthusiasts! Mr Marks was very much more interested in the works of James Joyce than in the challenges of the football pitch and I had gone through my own school days using all my ingenuity to avoid team games, so it was way beyond me to now become a referee and adjudicate on the subtleties of the offside rules. Another of my roles was to be in charge of the library. In this I was greatly helped by an intriguing boy who liked to be known as ‘Tricky’ Tropp – he had trained himself to perform magic tricks and be an entertainer at children’s parties. I believe he kept a collection of reptiles at home. I wonder if he went into show business . . .

Such charm as our eccentric school had once held for me quickly withered when Mr Soester was replaced as Head of English first by Mr Benjamin and then – when he surrendered to the full force of repression lined up against the liberal arts – a Mrs Masterson, for whom I didn’t care. Mr Benjamin apparently didn’t realise what a conflicted establishment he was joining. He was an enthusiastic advocate of the now discredited 100% coursework for GCSE English and English Literature. What he failed to take into account was the string of private tutors that many pupils of the Hasmonean kept in tow, making it impossible to assess what percentage of the final submission was the candidate’s own unaided efforts. I think he finally gave up when, having arranged for a group of professional actors to come to the school to present a version of Macbeth, the event was cancelled at the very last moment. Something was said about it being unsuitable for boys to watch a woman on the stage, as their passions might be inflamed. The secret censors had struck again!

What I now think of as the moment when I knew I had to be on my way was an end of term assembly led by Rabbi Bondi. He reminded the boys that, since the Jews are at the head of Creation and superior to all other forms of life, they should not sully themselves by mixing with Gentiles during their holidays. Where did that leave me? Amazing, really, that I was accorded any degree of respect or acceptance, though I did know that there were many in the hall who would have taken little notice of the Rabbi’s admonitions.

The Hasmo had been good to me in many ways, had provided secure employment when I most needed it and there were always some pupils and colleagues to whom I could relate. But it was more than time for a change. After all, my second sojourn had lasted the best part of ten years. If I had any vocation as a teacher, it was to share what Literature and Theatre mean to me, and in 1989 I was lucky enough to find a post at the nearby Mount School for Girls where such aims could flourish unimpeded.

I was given a warm send off by my colleagues, but there was one last disappointment: Rabbi Roberg explained that, although the boys had all contributed to a leaving present, the one in charge had forgotten to bring it! I never did find out what it was . . .

See also Hasmo Legends X: Mad Dogs and English Teachers

Hasmo Legends XV: “Polly” Sue Schneider

It all started as a dare.

It was circa 1981. I had just married into the Schneider household and was getting used to being regaled every evening at the dinner table with Hasmo stories related by Tony, Daniel and Saul, my new husband’s three boys. My children, Nadia, Adam and Gideon Levene (who attended non-Jewish schools), were already most adept at affecting brilliant imitations of “Cyril” and “Mad Dog” without ever having encountered either.

One evening, the Hasmo story-of-the-day seemed even more outrageous than usual and I quipped “Oh come on, it can’t really be like that. You’re exaggerating.” To which Daniel, who usually remained quite quiet until he wanted to drop a bombshell, retorted “If you don’t believe us, why don’t you come and see for yourself? They need a new French teacher. I dare you to apply.”

All eyes were on me.

“Go on, mum.”

“You’ll be able to tell us what goes on in the staffroom.”

“You’ll be able to see if Cyril can actually speak French.”

Before I knew it I found myself in Rabbi Roberg’s office.

I had the strong feeling that the ensuing interview was only being conducted because it ought to be, and that, as far as Rabbi Roberg was concerned, it didn’t really matter anyway because, after all, I was only a French teacher. When he heard that my degree was in German and Spanish too his eyes lit up, presumably thinking of the cost-effectiveness of this arrangement. I insisted that I had had no experience of teaching German and had forgotten most of what I had learnt. So, of course, I was told I would be perfect for the sole A-level student (who, incidentally, was quite brilliant and taught me a thing or two).

Rabbi Roberg – who must have noticed my Ealing, or at least non-Golders Green, accent – also asked me if I could teach English. When I told him that I didn’t think I was qualified to do so, he assured me I would be fine and that he would give me a GCSE class!

Thus I found myself sheepishly agreeing to start teaching almost immediately. And I thought the dare was just to apply for the job.

I did, however, stipulate that I couldn’t possibly teach from the legendary Whitmarsh, which resembled a pre-war soldier’s manual using expressions which hadn’t been used in France for more than a century. Each chapter in the book told an inane story using the grammar of the week and was followed by equally inane questions lacking a glimmer of originality, creativity or initiative (probably why Hasmonean boys loved it so much, as it almost invited them to be chutzpadik in their answers). I was cordially asked to choose whichever textbook I pleased. Needless to say most boys preferred the “manual” to the modern “whole language” approach that I introduced with the text book called Tricolore.

Besides the nightly dinner time stories, I knew very little about Hasmo, and after my first day there, I assumed that it was a school for mainly disadvantaged families. This was occasioned by the scruffiness of the uniforms: blazers hanging at all angles, scraggly ties, scuffed shoes and kippot that seemed to have been deliberately stamped on and rubbed in the ground – I’m sure they had been. I remember how dumbfounded I was to find that one of the “deprived” children, who I had already picked out as needing extra care and attention, was picked up from school in a Rolls Royce.

Somewhat miraculously, I taught at Hasmo for four years and was, I think, the first female member of staff to tackle a full-time job there. In truth, I had, until Mike contacted me, subconsciously erased these four years from my memory. For those in the know, it wasn’t exactly a recommendation on a CV. I subsequently took an amazing EFL teaching diploma, taught in universities in Israel and became a teacher-trainer myself.

I shudder to think what I would have thought if I had supervised my own teaching at Hasmonean. I do remember being quite insistent upon trying out new methods, speaking French in the classroom and being considered a bit of an idealistic “new girl” in the staffroom for attempting the impossible. I was also considered to be rather weird because I could be constantly found marking homework, not something approved of in that environment. I also remember the withering feeling of having to give in to using the “old methods” if I wanted any sort of quiet in the classroom. Only the magic words “test” would have the desired effect. Nothing but nothing produced silence like this holy word.

Talking of holy, it’s altogether quite amazing that I was accepted in the staffroom at all since I didn’t fit into any particular category. First and foremost I was female, quite an anomaly in itself. Then I was a practicing Jew (the newly Bnei Akiva‘d variety), who fraternized with the gentile/secular elements . . . and, horror of horrors, accompanied them on pub lunches. I’m sorry to report that these weekly sessions were no more than a jollied-up version of our staffroom capers. That is to say, more quips about the antics of the pupils and grouses about the “others”. Which reminds me that one of Jeff Soester’s favourite comments was that he loved it when certain Rabbis wrote on reports “Learns good”.

Nonetheless, I felt quite comfortable talking to most of the Rabbis, some of whom were extremely genial. Rabbi Abrahams always used to bounce into the staffroom smiling and singing some trendy song and would often tell jokes or talk about his time in Shanghai. Also Rabbi Kahan was always very pleasant and partial to a joke or two. I was constantly moving between the two sections of the staffroom while the bewildered members of the “opposition” bemusedly looked on.

When I think about it now, there was comparatively little real tension in the staffroom, given the differences of world views. This presumably was because we needed a rest from the “enemy” outside the staffroom doors. The only real “fight” was focused on the ubiquitous tea towel that the Rabbis insisted on drying on the urn and which Mr. Marks always snatched off the urn, wrinkling up his nose and complaining bitterly of the smell.

I was treated with the utmost respect by all the staff. Cyril, of course, never mentioned the “ridiculous” book I had introduced as it didn’t matter anyway as far as he was concerned because he didn’t use it and it was only for the lesser mortals that I taught!

Jonny Bokor, had he not been such a lovely man, might have gained a black mark from me because he insisted on calling me “Polly”. You guessed it – he allocated me to put the kettle on if I was free before the morning break. My gentile/secular friends couldn’t suppress their smirks when I went into servile mode rather than defend my usual feminist approach. I do remember having some amazing laughing sessions in the gentile/secularist corner. Ivan Marks, Jeff Soester and Liam Joughin were masters of satire when it came to caricaturing the pupils. It works the other way round too you know.

One particular occasion in the staffroom that I haven’t managed to erase from my memory was when an extremely plain, portly, homely, ultra-Orthodox lady who had come in for a few days as a substitute fell back on her chair and landed with her legs open and in the air. The men in the gentile/secular corner who were all facing her had to sit upright, attempting to stifle their guffaws and after I had helped the poor lady up and she had left the staffroom, Ivan Marks gasped “I’m so glad she had her head covered otherwise I might have been turned on!!”

Entering the Hasmo world from the Ealing one had introduced me to a completely new view of religion, some aspects of which really shocked me. I naively assumed that Judaism would be taught in such a positive way that pupils would be able to enter the world confident about their religion and convinced it was the right way. I had hitherto been completely unaware of the culture of fear of the secular demon. Fear of coming into contact with any thoughts that might be contaminating. Fear of anything that did not adhere to the accepted way of thinking.

I remember bouncing in one morning having watched an excellent programme on TV – with David Attenborough, I think – and singing its praises, only to find that there had been an emergency assembly forbidding the boys to watch it (which of course meant that it would now be watched by the majority of them, who otherwise wouldn’t have dreamt of doing so). I also have memories of history teacher Mr. Johnson painstakingly drawing bra and pants on every single female nude statue that appeared in the new history textbook he had ordered about Greece and Rome.

I suppose one of my biggest crimes (and I’m sure there were many) was teaching some Beatles songs to my English GCSE pupils. Happily, they were far more worldly than me and warned me of the significance of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” before Rabbi Roberg embarrassedly asked me not to teach it (how did he know what it meant when I didn’t?!)

I have to praise to the hilt the gallant boys in my son Gideon’s class who sympathized with his predicament and acted like angels for me. Gideon had begged me to take him out of Latymer and allow him to go to Hasmo with his friends and have a good time. Mr. Marks never forgave me for allowing my son to commit such Hari Kari. The rest of my pupils? Well, apart from them forcing me to run out of my classroom on a couple of humiliating occasions, shaking from head to toe in fury, to Rabbi Roberg and/or Mr. Joughin (one of the few teachers pupils were terrified of), I came out relatively unscathed.

The real miracle of Hasmonean in those times (and perhaps nowadays too) is that it managed to turn out some wonderfully articulate, upright, worthy young men, who are now proud parents and successful professionals. Some of them I have the privilege of bumping into in Israel, where we have lived since 1986. And I feel very proud that I knew and taught these “miserable wretches” . . . as most of them undoubtedly once were.

Sue Schneider, Jerusalem, October 2009.

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part XVI: 1959 School Photograph

Hasmo Legends X: Mad Dogs and English Teachers

Just as the very presence of Jews in the Middle East is anathema to fundamentalist Islam, so was the teaching of non-Limmudei Kodesh (religious studies), mathematics or science subjects repugnant to the extremist regime at Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys (maths and science were tolerated, due to their immunity from the ‘corrupting’ influences of liberalism and moral relativism).

Indeed, in the seventies and eighties, a PR position at the Zionist Federation in Damascus would have been considerably more alluring than teaching the arts at Hasmonean, and the poor bastards tasked with doing so should be more pitied than mocked.

The most to suffer from Hasmo’s philistinism were its English teachers, consisting – during my period at the school (1978-1985) – of fixtures, Ivan Marks and Jeff Soester, and fittings, Tony Pearce and Tim Messom. (There was another English teacher, Jonathan Benjamin, who joined Hasmonean a year or so before I left, but other than considering that – as a very dark-skinned Indian Jew – he didn’t really look the part, I recall little else about him.)

Asking these gentlemen to impart their love of the English language, and literature, to Hasmo boys – who felt justified in being even more chutzpadik than they already were by what they knew to be the contemptuous attitude of the school’s Judeofascist regime towards the subjects – was, in cricketing terms, tantamount to asking Derek Pringle to bowl at Vivian Richards with his shoelaces tied together.

The closest competitor to Jonny Bokor (“the Bonnie Joker”) for the title of Hasmo’s Most Cordial Teacher – though, it has to be said, the competition was not all that fierce – must surely have been Tony Pearce, who taught us first year English. He left the school shortly afterwards, to become involved in Christian ministry. (See Hasmo Legends VIII, Parts I and II)

Perhaps the most persuasive argument for the existence of the Jewish Deity, and of the miracles that He will perform for His people, is that – in spite of Hasmonean’s Jewish ‘role models’ – Tony didn’t succeed, in his four years at Holders Hill Road, in converting any of us to “the Big J”.

The irony, of course, is that, as Jewish youngsters, we were continually being warned of the dangers of Christian missionaries . . . none of whom did any of us nearly as much damage as the assorted misfits and misanthropes charged with providing our spiritual education at Hasmonean.

The tall, bearded Tim Messom, who replaced Tony – and who didn’t last much longer at the school – was a fundamentally decent man, though one prone to absolutely losing it on occasion (once again, usually with Elbaz . . . though he was not alone in that!)

In our first ever lesson with Mr. Messom, in the exotically named Mobile Unit (at the bottom of the playground), our new, imposing, and ever-so English, master – he was more that than “teacher” – spelt out his name:

“M – E – S – S . . . that is double S, of course . . . O – M.”

Naturally, in every subsequent lesson, some bright spark would again ask him how he spelt it . . . and Mr. Messom, in precisely the same fashion, and to our great amusement, would repeat:

“M – E – S – S . . . that is double S, of course . . . O – M.”

Hasmo legend has it that Mr. Messom had been a circus ringmaster, and that his wife had run off with the resident (or should that be “travelling”?) lion tamer. As with so many of the stories that have emanated from Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys over the years, you just couldn’t make it up.

If Messrs Pearce and Messom played nice little cameos in the annals of Hasmonean English teaching, Marks and Soester were clearly the leading men. In fact, these two gentlemen were the closest to a double act that Hasmo has ever had, their names – in tales of the institution – usually running together.

Marks and Soester taught the same discipline (at least in one sense of the word), their tenures at Hasmonean – from the early seventies to mid-nineties – largely overlapped, and they spent much of this time in adjacent classrooms, in the dilapidated former barracks mischievously rebranded the Sixth Form Block (as one commenter to melchett mike has wryly observed, “by the same Roberg-ist propaganda machine that brought us the £3 school kuppel”).

Sixth Formers in front of the Sixth Form Block, circa 1972

This unedifying edifice – situated between the fiefdom of Chich’s gymnasium and the Mobile Unit (see also the photograph in Hasmo Legends V) – had apparently, in the mid-seventies, been condemned as unsafe and insanitary, boarded up, and earmarked for demolition. But, by the time I arrived at Holders Hill Road, in 1978, the boards had been removed, and the Block designated for the exclusive use of Marks and Soester . . . the lucky so-and-sos!

When Mr. Soester became an extra in the late eighties BBC sitcom Brush Strokes – injudiciously, in view of the extra ‘ammunition’ it provided the already well-armed boys (though one can perhaps forgive his longing to escape his daily reality) – pupils would hum its theme tune as he walked into class.

This insolence would then spread to the adjacent classroom of Mr. Marks, who, on one occasion, was complimented (by another commenter to melchett mike) for his wonderful performance the evening before. His wit was rewarded with “a savage attack to [the] head with a hardback book”.

Mr. Soester’s opting to be an extra was rather apt. If DJ was Bond baddie Blofeld and Rabbi Greenberg Batman’s The Penguin (his actual Hasmo nickname), the considerably more likeable, if somewhat unremarkable, Marks and Soester – with their seventies blazers, tank tops, and polyester slacks – were the unfashionable detective extras, in the background at their NYPD desks, on seventies US cop shows like Kojak and Starsky & Hutch.

Rather conveniently, seeing as his son Simon is a regular on melchett mike– and has made all kinds of veiled, though good humoured, threats in relation to what I write about his “old man” – Jeff Soester didn’t teach me much at Hasmonean (emphasis on “me”, Simon, not “much”!) His classroom, however, was clearly rather chaotic, and I recall him being a rather edgy gentleman (as if that is any surprise).

I have one particularly vivid recollection of “Jeff” walking up the playground from the Sixth Form Block, while my classmate Abie Cohen – seated in the middle of our Form 2AB photograph in a beige jumper – performed a Mizrachi (North African Jewish)-style dance around him. Abie was whirling the palms and backs of his hands extremely close to Jeff’s eyes and nose, no doubt intending the excitable teacher to spill his precariously piled books. This somewhat odd spectacle has stayed with me to this day, because it somehow inexplicably captured the unique brand of Hasmo chutzpah.

But Jeff, too, apparently had a mischievous side. A commenter to melchett mike has related how, as a young Israeli boy new to Hasmonean, Jeff told him: “Go to the staff room – you can use the middle staircase – knock on the door, and ask for ‘Freddy’.” The door was opened by History teacher, Mr. Lawrence, who handed over a silver tray with a white plimsoll placed neatly on top, which the rather naïve boy promptly delivered to his ‘executioner’.

It was Ivan Marks, however, who was responsible for the major part of my English education at Hasmonean.

I recall Mr. Marks fondly, not just because his was my favourite subject (it didn’t face much competition), but because he was one of the few teachers at Hasmonean who actually attempted to treat us like adults. This was especially true for those of us who took English Literature A Level, which presented the first opportunity for us, largely repressed, Jewish boys to explore sexual themes through literature . . . an opportunity we rarely missed.

Mr. Marks, unlike so many of his Hasmo colleagues, also had a sense of humour. Often, even post-frenzy, he would barely be able to conceal a smile, which he would further attempt to draw attention away from by characteristically poking his spectacles back up his ski-jump nose.

It was these mock frenzies, perhaps together with his mane of lank jet black hair, which earned Mr. Marks the rather undeserved nickname “Mad Dog”. His bark was far louder than his bite, and I don’t recall him ever administering anything more rabid than a firm prod on the neck with the spine of his textbook.

Mr. Marks was frustrated by the “study aid” mentality of Hasmo boys. Rather than appreciating the rich source texts, we would buy up Dillons’ stock of Pan Study Aids, and York and Brodie’s Notes. For English Literature O Level, my classmate, Grant Morgan, went so far as to purchase Macbeth in comic form. He memorised the text by rote, and would walk up to puzzled boys in the playground – some of whom didn’t even know him – proudly proclaiming “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” He got an E.

Another Hasmo friend, Daniel Kelly, winds me up to this day about my predilection for study aids (ironic, I remind him, for a boy who had a respected Dayan as a grandfather, but who opted – during our time at Manchester University – to study Modern Hebrew, with non-Jewish undergraduates who knew not their zayin from their chet).

Mr. Marks was also continually frustrated by the idiotic machinations of Hasmonean’s religious elite – which would, inter alia, ban literature considered too sexually explicit from the syllabus and school library – and he would say so.

He would often – somewhat tongue-in-cheek, once again – take these frustrations out on the more religious boys. “It’s always the frum ones” was his oft-heard lament. And “Finn,” he would say, on one memorable occasion, “just because your father drives around Golders Green in a Volvo, it doesn’t mean you can do what you want in my class.”

Mr. Soester shared Mr. Marks’s irritation with frummers, handing back work with the line “I don’t want to hear everyone screaming, ‘Yitzi, Shmuli, I got half a mark more than you!’” (a request which, of course, had the opposite effect).

Ironically, two of Mr. Marks’s star English pupils, Simon Harris – who left the school a number of years before us, but with whom he kept in touch – and Jonathan Levene, from our year, both became significant frummers (the former becoming Chief Rabbi of Ireland). Mr. Marks must have been most disappointed.

I heard, some years ago, that Mr. Marks had not been well. I sincerely hope that he has made a full recovery and that, if he has dipped into melchett mike (as I understand Mr. Soester has), he has found at least something which he considers worthy of his considerable efforts . . . in an institution which didn’t deserve him.

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part XI: “Big Al(an)” Walters